DD - Definition Description

The DD element provides the definition of a term in a definition list. The closing tag for DD is optional, but its use prevents common browser bugs with style sheets.

DD may contain block-level elements such as P, H2, TABLE, and DL. This allows definition lists to be nested, as in the following example:

<DL>

  <DT><A NAME="spanning-tree">Spanning tree</A></DT>
  <DD>
    <P>
      A spanning tree of a graph is a <A HREF="#tree">tree</A>
      that contains all the vertices of the graph. There are two
      main types of spanning trees:
    </P>

    <DL>
      <DT>BFS spanning tree</DT>
      <DD>
        A spanning tree formed by a breadth-first search on the graph.
      </DD>
      <DT>DFS spanning tree</DT>
      <DD>
        A spanning tree formed by a depth-first search on the graph.
      </DD>
    </DL>
  </DD>

  <DT><A NAME=tree>Tree</A></DT>
  <DD>
    <P>
      A tree is a connected, undirected graph without cycles.
    </P>
  </DD>

</DL>

A DD element should generally be preceded by a DT element that gives the term defined by the DD. A single definition term may have multiple definitions associated with it, and a single definition may have multiple terms.

More Information

• DD in W3C HTML 4.0 Recommendation
• DD in W3C HTML 3.2 Recommendation
• DD in HTML 2.0 Standard
• DD in WDG HTML 3.2 Reference
• DD in Learning HTML 3.2 by Examples

Copyright © 1998 by Liam Quinn. This material may be distributed only subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the Open Publication License, v1.0 or later (the latest version is presently available at http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/).